A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

Search form

Obama’s Constitution

At the beginning of his inaugural address, President Obama observed that

“America has carried on, not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears and true to our founding documents.” [my italics]

Although Obama had taught constitutional law for 12 years, the rest of his address raises a question whether he has ever read the Constitution. For he spells out his vision by committing his administration to a wide range of activities for which there is little or no authority in the Constitution.

“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.”

Moreover, he asserts, our government should be judged by “whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified,” not by such “stale political arguments” as whether the policies that might generate these outcomes are constitutional and generate benefits higher than the costs.

Nor are the commitments of his administration to be limited to those of greatest concern to Americans.

“To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow, to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.”

“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world.”

President Obama is intelligent and charming –- but not wise. The Constitution only authorizes the president to be the chief executive of the federal government and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, ample challenges to the most skilled person, but the president is not the sole leader of the federal government, the American nation, or the free world. Based on his inaugural address, President Obama has no apparent sense of the limits of what he can and should do –- and that will reduce his effectiveness in addressing those issues within his clear authority.